Olemaun is eight and knows a lot of things. But she does not know how to read. Ignoring her father’s warnings, she travels far from her Arctic home to the outsiders’ school to learn. Based on the true story of Margaret Pokiak-Fenton, and complemented by stunning illustrations, When I Was Eight makes the bestselling Fatty Legs accessible to younger readers. Now they, too, can meet this remarkable girl who reminds us what power we hold when we can read. Published in Canada by Annick Press *Best Books for Kids and Teens, starred selection, Canadian Children’s Book Centre; Recommended Reads List, Canadian Toy Testing Council; 2017 TD Summer Reading Club Recommended Reads List; Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize finalist; Cybils Award nomination

At the end of the nineteenth century, Indigenous boarding schools were touted as the means for solving the “Indian problem” in both Canada and the United States. With the goal of permanently transforming Indigenous young people into Europeanized colonial subjects, the schools were ultimately a means for eliminating Indigenous communities as obstacles to land acquisition, resource extraction, and nation building. Andrew Woolford analyzes the formulation of the “Indian problem” as a policy concern in the United States and Canada and examines how the “solution” of Indigenous boarding schools was implemented in Manitoba and New Mexico through complex chains that included multiple government offices, a variety of staff, Indigenous peoples, and even nonhuman factors such as poverty, disease, and space. The genocidal project inherent in these boarding schools, however, did not unfold in either nation without diversion, resistance, and unintended consequences. Because of differing historical, political, and structural influences, the two countries have arrived at two very different responses to the harms caused by assimilative education. Inspired by the signing of the 2006 Residential School Settlement Agreement in Canada, which provided a truth and reconciliation commission and compensation for survivors of residential schools, This Benevolent Experiment offers a multi-layered, comparative analysis of Indigenous boarding schools in the United States and Canada. * Finalist, Raphael Lemkin Book Award, The Institute for the Study of Genocide (2017);Outstanding Academic Title, Choice Magazine (2016); NOMINEE, Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction, Manitoba Book Awards (2016)

Three of the most well-known and respected Métis artists in Canada collaborate in this heart wrenching telling of what it means to be Métis. Bouchard's heartfelt story is illustrated by prominent Métis artist Dennis Weber. Included on the accompanying CD, with reading in English/French and Michif, is the Red River Jig performed by acclaimed Master Métis Fiddler John Arcand. The Métis in Canada, birthed in the mixing of nations, are the only people in the world recognized by every level of government (except in Quebec) as being a Nation. The Métis have their own languages, flag, songs and stories. They have exciting traditions and a proud history. Sadly, their journey was one of hardships, denial and often lies. In The Secret of Your Name, these three men open their hearts to all those who care to know what it means when it is said that we are Proud to be Métis! This spectacular book will appeal to any and all who have an interest in Indigenous peoples in Canada. It will call out to art collectors, musicians and all who have ever pondered their own past.

A young girl discovers her Cayuga heritage when she finds a mask that sings to her. Cass and her mom have always stood on their own against the world. Then Cass learns she had a grandmother, one who was never part of her life, one who has just died and left her and her mother the first house they could call their own. But with it comes more questions than answers: Why is her Mom so determined not to live there? Why was this relative kept so secret? And what is the unusual mask, hidden in a drawer, trying to tell her? Strange dreams, strange voices, and strange incidents all lead Cass closer to solving the mystery and making connections she never dreamed she had.

The captivating story of Mary John (who passed away in 2004), a pioneering Dakelh woman whose life on the Stoney Creek reserve in central BC is a capsule history of First Nations life from a unique woman's perspective. A mother of twelve, Mary endured much tragedy and heartbreak -- the pangs of racism, poverty, and the deaths of six children -- but lived her life with extraordinary grace and courage. Years after her death, she continues to be a renowned positive role model. In 1997 she received the Order of Canada. This edition of Stoney Creek Woman, one of Arsenal's all-time bestsellers, includes a new preface by author Bridget Moran, and new photographs. * Shortlisted for the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize

The story of the beautiful relationship between a little girl and her grandfather. When she asks her grandfather how to say something in his language – Cree – he admits that his language was stolen from him when he was a boy. The little girl then sets out to help her grandfather find his language again. This sensitive and warmly illustrated picture book explores the intergenerational impact of the residential school system that separated young Indigenous children from their families. The story recognizes the pain of those whose culture and language were taken from them, how that pain is passed down, and how healing can also be shared.

Starting with the foundations of residential schooling in seventeenth-century New France, Miller traces the modern version of the institution that was created in the 1880s, and, finally, describes the phasing-out of the schools in the 1960s. He looks at instruction, work and recreation, care and abuse, and the growing resistance to the system on the part of students and their families. Based on extensive interviews as well as archival research, Miller's history is pArcticularly rich in Native accounts of the school system.* Co-winner of the 1996 Saskatchewan Book Award for nonfiction; Winner of the 1996 John Wesley Dafoe Foundation competition for Distinguished Writing by Canadians; Named an 'Outstanding Book on the subject of human rights in North America' by the Gustavus Myer Center for the Study of Human Rights in North America.

Sammy is a seven-year-old Cree boy who has to go to residential school away from his family and the reserve because his parents spend the year on the trap line until spring. Sammy is unhappy about leaving his family, and the preparations are an ordeal—having his grandmother cut his hair short with a big scissors, and being scrubbed all over by his mother. But worse things happened when he got to school. He had to get undressed in front of the supervisor and the other boys to have a shower and he was given a number, 122. As if that were not bad enough, he was not allowed to speak Cree, which made him worried. He didn't know much English, but the other boys promised to help him, and he felt better. Sammy gets used to the routines of school that at first were so foreign to him and he enjoys learning many new things. In the spring when school is over, he learns that the residential school will be closed and next year there will be a school in his village. He will be able to live with his grandmother and his aunt while his parents are on the trapline the next year, and he can still go to school.

Canada's residential school system for aboriginal young people is now recognized as a grievous historic wrong committed against First Nations, Metis, and Inuit peoples. This book documents this subject in a format that will give all young people access to this painful part of Canadian history. In 1857, the Gradual Civilization Act was passed by the Legislature of the Province of Canada with the aim of assimilating First Nations people. In 1879, Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald commissioned the "Report on Industrial Schools for Indians and Half-Breeds." This report led to native residential schools across Canada. First Nations and Inuit children aged seven to fifteen years old were taken from their families, sometimes by force, and sent to residential schools where they were made to abandon their culture. They were dressed in uniforms, their hair was cut, they were forbidden to speak their native language, and they were often subjected to physical and psychological abuse. The schools were run by the churches and funded by the federal government. About 150,000 Indigenous children went to 130 residential schools across Canada. The last federally funded residential school closed in 1996 in Saskatchewan. The horrors that many children endured at residential schools did not go away. It took decades for people to speak out, but with the support of the Assembly of First Nations and Inuit organizations, former residential school students took the federal government and the churches to court. Their cases led to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, the largest class-action settlement in Canadian history. In 2008, Prime Minister Harper formally apologized to former native residential school students for the atrocities they suffered and the role the government played in setting up the school system. The agreement included the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which has since worked to document this experience and toward reconciliation. Through historical photographs, documents, and first-person narratives from First Nations, Inuit, and Metis people who survived residential schools, this book offers an account of the injustice of this period in Canadian history. It documents how this official racism was confronted and finally acknowledged.